With the fast paced, mobile conditions prevalent in today's society, people are turning to small, pocket size computer systems to help them organize their time, perform computing functions for small amounts of information, and communicate with others while traveling. The progression of the pocket size computers has gone from the earlier pocket organizers towards personal systems that not only can be used as organizers but allow minor word processing, note taking, and communications, such as paging capabilities.
An essential part of having a personal pocket size computer system is being able to transmit the information from the computer to another location for use by others, transmit the information to a larger computer, or print out the information. Some pocket computers which are manufactured by larger computer makers are generally able to tie to desk top computers through a hard wire link. Others require an additional printer, or even have the printer built in. An additional method of transmitting the information stored within the pocket size computer is to send the information using facsimile machines.
Them are two problems associated with sending information directly from a pocket size computer through a facsimile machine. The first relates to the size of the computer display relative to the facsimile standard output. Generally, pocket size computers use LCD displays having some set amount of dots of information on the screen. On the other hand, the facsimile system will also have some set standard which will not correlate with the LCD display size. A conversion is then required to send the LCD image to a facsimile machine and across the facsimile link to the end party. Distortion in the graphics often occurs because the two are not proportionate, and a closely simulated picture is not received by the end party.
The second problem associated with the LCD display/facsimile machine connection is the rate at which the pocket size computer MCU will transmit data to the facsimile machine. The MCU will usually convert the LCD display dots into facsimile pels (standard facsimile units) and encode the facsimile pels as compressed data at a much faster rate than the facsimile machine can transmit the information over the facsimile link. Large amounts of memory are required to store the encoded data prior to transmitting. For portable computers, and other computers as well, it is desirable to have a minimum amount of RAM memory used for data transmission.
Therefore, it would be advantageous to have a method of converting the information displayed on the screen of a small pocket size computer to a proportional a standard facsimile format and transmit the converted information to a facsimile machine at a rate which the facsimile machine can transmit.